Saturday, May 31, 2008

To begin with, we went camping with our friends Tyler & Emma over the holiday weekend. The first night we stayed by a little pond on land which we thought belonged to the grandfather of the friend with whom we were camping. (Did you get all that?) However, on Saturday morning the farmer who actually owned the land asked us to either pack up or pay him $25/night to stay there. Needless to say we decided to camp elsewhere for the remainder of the weekend, lol!

Austin & Tyler cooking breakfast

Being asked to leave was actually the best thing that could have happened to our camping trip because the spot where we ended up camping for the rest of the weekend belonged to some friends who were also camping out, and who just happened to have several horses and mules and donkeys, so we all got to go riding! The last time Hoss & I went riding was on our honeymoon in September, and it's an activity that we both really enjoy, so it was a nice surprise addition to our already fun weekend! The donkey that I was riding was older and not too keen on getting his feet wet, so he sidestepped each puddle, which wasn't that big of a deal except that it had been very rainy the week before, so there were puddles that took up the entire width of the trail. One of these trail-wide puddles was on a portion of the trail that was surrounded by trees. In his attempt to sidestep this particular puddle, he had to cross under some branches that were tall enough for him to get under, but not tall enough for the both of us to get under. Long story short, I ended up in the puddle!

Emma relaxing by the campfire

We decided not to stay Sunday night because the weather turned very hot and extremely humid rather quickly on Sunday afternoon. Which was fortunate because Sunday night and early Monday morning there was some very severe weather with heavy rain, high winds, and even tornadoes in some areas!

We enjoyed a lazy Memorial Day at home, and thanks to the holiday it was a 4-day work week at the office. Although it seems like the shorter work weeks are just that much more packed full of activity to make up for the missing day :)

Tuesday evenings we run a rural shopper route (for those of you unfamiliar with a "Shopper" it's very similar to the classified section of the daily papers except it's only delivered once a week, and it is also filled with ads and coupons from the local businesses). We deliver about 900 papers on approximately 200 miles of country roads. The first couple of times that we ran the route I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into, but we seem to have developed a good pattern and are getting the hang of it. This last Tuesday marked the 7th time we have run it, and it's actually become rather enjoyable - especially as the weather gets nicer to - to drive around and watch the sunset and talk or listen to the radio.

Wednesday evening we drove to Des Moines for dinner out and a concert, and Thursday we went to a surprise party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of some close family friends.

Austin & I at the concert in Des Moines

Then . . . Friday afternoon, Austin went to the dog run and found our dog Drea laying on her side. He called her name a couple of times and she didn't move, she was gone. She had lost a lot of weight over the last month or so, but when we took her to the vet he said that she just had worms, gave her a pill and sent us on our way. Less than two weeks later . . . We still have our other dog, her sister, Diddy, but we're all pretty sad about it. The dogs were sisters, from the same litter and Diddy will be 3 in September. We dropped her off at the vet again this morning for the last time and said our goodbyes.

This pic is of me with Diddy and Drea the day we got them from the pound(Drea is the tan one)

Drea

So, needless to say, it's been a very eventful week with a lot of ups and downs.

Thank you for reading.

"It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest."

Friday, May 23, 2008

Well, I've finally done it. I've been wanting to start a blog for some time now, but have been hesitant to begin. For one thing, I wasn't sure I had anything of value to say, and while I can't guarantee that everything I type will be oozing with wit and wisdom, I will make every effort to keep this from being a "blah-g" - I'm actually hoping that it will be more of a "crog" (I've learned so many new words since I discovered the wonderful world of blogging, lol).

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day :)

***We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.***